International Human Rights and Mentall Disability Law (3)

Professors Michael Perlin, Eva Szeli, Karen Owen Talley

This course will examine the relationship between constitutional mental disability law and international human rights law, primarily as that relationship deals with questions of legislative drafting, legal representation, institutional treatment, community care, and forensic mental health systems. It will cover a comparison of civil and common law systems, an overview of international human rights law, an overview of regional human rights tribunals, an overview of US constitutional mental disability law, the role of "sanism" and "pretextuality" in understanding developments in this area, mental disability law in an international human rights context, comparative mental disability law, the use of institutional psychiatry as a means of suppressing political dissension, the "universal factors" in this area of law, and the globalization of disability law. The focus will be on both American law and on international human rights norms (e.g., the UN Principles for the Protection of Persons with Mental Illness), and the developing body of case law in the Inter-American and European Courts and Commissions on Human Rights.
This is a predominately on-line course, requiring students to participate in a weekly chat room, discussion board, and two, day-long weekend live seminars at New York Law School. The grade is based on chat room, discussion board and live seminar participation, a midterm paper, and a take-home final. For master’s degree and certificate students, Survey of Mental Disability Law is a pre-requisite or co-requisite.